No poo-pooing these beetles

Dung beetles may not sound like the most savoury subject for discussion, but Betsy Kettle, turned them into a fascinating topic at the recent Australasian Permacultural Convergence.

At a presentation on the joys of having these manure munchers around, Betsy said: ‘The dung beetle is actually a demigod in disguise. They are the Scarab beetle the Egyptians worshipped – with good reason.”

While New Zealanders may not worship them, dung beetles are absolute proof that nature has neglected nothing in converting waste into nutrient. They go back a very long way too. Their fossilised remains have been found in equally fossilised dinosaur droppings.

Today there are more than 5000 species on every land on which large herbivores browse and live. Many are very specific, perhaps ‘choosy’ about their meals and have evolved to process the dung of only one kind of animal.

There is a native indigenous species in New Zealand, but it is a forest dweller adapted to living on the rather meagre droppings of birds. It has never been found more than three metres from the forest boundary.

The absence of big herbivores in New Zealand’s evolution has meant there is no local dung beetle adapted to the pastoral cycle – a drawback that is about to change.

For several years Project Dung Beetle has been in existence to rectify the perceived gap on Kiwi farms.

At Lincoln University they have been rearing up to 11 species of beetle, and the fruits of their labours will be available shortly. The project has been complex, and involved species of beetle that were thought to be able to adapt, as well as seasonally active species.

Some dung beetles are more active in the winter, and the project wished to have a spread of species available throughout the year. Small or large, without dung beetles to remove the dung from farms, it sits on the surface and is a breeding ground for intestinal parasites affecting all herbivores.

Quite a number of farmers have seen the absence of dung beetles as detrimental to farming in this country, among them noted Bio-dynamic farmer John Pearce who has actually had them working successfully on his Shelly Beach farm for years. He obtained them long before MAF had restrictions in place.

Forty years ago Tasmania and Australia started introducing numbers of different dung beetle species, and have reported many benefits and no problems.

In addition to exotic diseases it was feared obvious predators of insect life would suffer in some way. But as dung beetles only eat dung, they probably don’t taste too good, and experience showed that ‘once tasted – left well alone.’

The potential benefits of having dung beetles active on New Zealand farms are almost too numerous to mention but include:

- Increase in soil health, fertility and structure
- Increase in water infiltration and reduction of surface flooding and consequent run-off
- Decrease in nutrient loss, greenhouse gas emissions and waterway pollution
- Decrease in intestinal parasites and need for drenches
- Increase the sustainability of the whole pastoral cycle

Betsy Kettle was one of many speakers at the Australasian Permacultural Convergence held in Turangi earlier this year. Some 450 attended and amidst a huge range of topics a major theme was economics and money. As Permaculture founder Bill Mollison said: ‘Permaculturists have to become bankers’.

American author Nicole Foss gave very pertinent advice with regard to any future credit crunch, which she believes is inevitable – “go liquid and early.”

Dung beetles are available from this month. To obtain them contact the project leader, Andrew Barber at: andrew@agrilink.co.nz.

Contributed by Crispin Caldicott